Turkey wants Free Trade Agreement with Pakistan: Envoy

ISLAMABAD: Ihsan Mustafa Yurdakul, Ambassador of Turkey in Pakistan said that his country wanted a sustainable and long-lasting Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Pakistan to achieve win-win results for both countries. He said that leadership of Turkey and Pakistan have an objective from FTA that it should boost bilateral trade eventually to $5 billion and hoped that Pakistan would finalise its list of items for FTA this month for Turkey.

He said this while addressing the business community at Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry. He said that Pak-Turkey existing bilateral trade of around $800 million was far from potential keeping in view the fact that common market of both countries was billions of dollars. He said that Turkish companies have invested around $1.5 billion in Pakistan and more were willing to invest here.

He said that Pakistan has great potential for FDI and Turkish companies wanted to be the first movers to Pakistan for which Pakistan needs to further improve ease of doing business. He stressed that business community of Pakistan should not wait for FTA and make strong efforts to promote trade ties with Turkey.

Speaking about CPEC, the Turkish envoy said that investors of his country needed more knowledge and information about all aspects of CPEC including investment potential in its SEZs and projects to tap all untapped potential in this project. He said that Turkey have increased 10-fold trade with Africa which was the 2nd largest continent of the world and urged that Pakistani business community should rediscover Africa for trade and exports.

He said that economic power was moving towards East while Pakistan was a gateway for Asia and wished that Pakistan would emerge as a trade hub in the region, for which it should improve its infrastructure and connectivity.